Other stuff

What else have we been up to you may wonder - well lots of varied jobs actually and not all the stuff we expected to be doing;

Fruit; we have had a bumper fruit crop of peaches, plums, pears, tomatoes and apples that we have spent many a hot evening processing them for the kilner jars.  We are constantly on the look out for second hand jars (they are very pricey new) and the we have been to more "brocante/vide grenier" (car boots) than you can shake a stick at.  We have haggled and negotiated and now our store room is rapidly filling up.  The tomatoes have become pizza/pasta sauce made with garlic and fresh basil (we aren't into tinned tomatoes) and the fruit has been bottled with cider and cinnamon or simply poached for the best stuff like the peaches off our own trees.  We intend to prune well this autumn (with Al's Dad's guidance) and start a proper care programme for the trees so we expect less fruit but of a higher quality next year.  We will also be planting strawberries and other soft fruits for next summer.

Kitchen DIY;  the €150 kitchen is nearly there but we await delivery of oak worktops and the splash back tiles need to be fitted but otherwise we are done.  It has been a slog with two coats of paint and a coat of mat varnish to protect the drawers and cupboards but we are happy.

Reclaimed Terra Cotta floor; We have sourced some very cheap reclaim terra cotta tiles that have just been dug up from a farm  house kitchen a few miles away.  They now need scrubbing and laying over the top of the ghastly kitchen, hallway and bathroom tiles on the ground floor.  We'll need to treat them with several coats of warmed linseed oil with turps in it to protect them but the should look very pretty and more in keeping with the style of our mill.  Only around 1000 to do!

Solar system; Klaus the plumber has nearly finished the heating system and we have Houston control centre in our store room.  The solar system is also in place and we hired a digger for another day for filling in the trenches and moving earth around.  Al also pumped out (yuk) and removed the grease trap sited just in front of the septic tank and now feels he is a qualified sewage engineer as our system now meets the legal requirements for septic tanks (we had to do this within one year of buying the place).

While the digger was on site, we also dug a shallow trench where the new chicken run is going (around 75metres long and backing on to the chicken shed) in order to bury the chicken wire into the ground around 30cms (to stop the foxes digging their way in; like The Great Escape in reverse).  It is a work in progress but the wire and posts are in and another layer of wire needs to go on the top half of the poles and an pair of electric fence wires (again anti fox) installing all the way round.  We are going for a low fence and clipping the chickens wings as this area will also become our future apple orchard (planting expected in November)  and we don't want it to look like a prison.  The pressure is on though as the chicks are getting ready to see the outside world.